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British tabloid magazine The Sun trashes the Wii U in their own Top 5

UPDATE: The Sun has since taken down the article that this post refers to.

Following in our footsteps, the Rupert Murdoch owned British “rag-mag” The Sun has made a Top 5 list of their own. This list, however, has sinister intentions giving reasons why you should not pick up a Wii U. Normally, this wouldn’t be newsworthy but the reasons stated in their article raises some eyebrows. Let’s break it down, shall we?

1. It’ll be out-dated within a year

The Wii U displays graphics at a quality comparative to what we see now thanks to Nintendo‘s long-awaited jump to HD. As far as how this will stack up to other next-gen systems is anyone’s guess. The reasoning here seems to stem from the Wii falling behind in this department compared to its competition. Despite this, the system still sold roughly 30 million units more than both the Xbox 360 and PS3. While I’m not really interested myself, the Wii U will have an audience especially those who have already bought into the now established Wii brand name.

2. Vita masquerading as the GamePad

I’m not really sure where to start on this outrageous claim. It’s literally comparing apples to oranges. Yes, both the PlayStation Vita and the Wii U GamePad have touchscreens but that’s where the similarities end. The Vita has a processor while the GamePad does not. You can play games on the go with the Vita which you cannot do on the GamePad. It’s understandable for the common consumer to get something like this mixed up which makes this false claim especially dangerous.

3. The threat to all consoles – mobile gaming

This is, again, another “apples and oranges” comparison. Anyone who has experience playing games on a console and an iPhone will tell you that they’re completely different experiences. In almost every instance, iPhone games are built to quickly pull out and play while you’re on the go waiting for your bus/lunch/job interview. You don’t get the same engrossing experience with Gears of War as you would Doodle Jump. It’s a matter of what you’re into and where you are that dictates how you game.

4. DS + Wii = fail?

This is a pretty silly claim. The writer for this article has the idea that the Wii U is the Frankenstein’s monster of previous Nintendo products. In reality, it’s a different experience that progresses what the Wii was all about. The previous system made a swing for the fences on motion control gaming and ended up hitting it out of the park. Wii U looks to press that further while putting in more of an effort to bring back the “hardcore” crowd. To say this reason is a stretch would give the Fantastic Four’s Mr. Fantastic a run for his money.

“Your point is just out of my reach.”

5. It’s dramatically over-priced.

Now this is a statement I can somewhat stand behind. Consumers who expected a similar price tag to that of the Wii were in for a surprise this time around. I can understand why we’re looking at $300-$350 for the Wii U considering just the tablet-styled controller itself. Speaking of which, it’s going to be interesting to see in the future what the price will be for the controller alone. My guess is $100 which could be a serious turnoff for a lot of people. A price reduction when Sony and Microsoft come out with their next-gen consoles is a safe bet I’d be willing to make.

What are your thoughts on The Sun‘s claims? Sound off in the comments below!

One thought on “British tabloid magazine The Sun trashes the Wii U in their own Top 5”

1. From a technical standpoint, that’s true. Consoles are always less powerful than their PC counterparts, because they’re a lot more focused and thus can do more with less. That being said, the Wii U is already being compared to this generation of consoles, so from a visual perspective, I actually do believe Nintendo is going to be left in the dust rapidly.

2. It’s true that the Gamepad isn’t like a Vita, but isn’t that a bad thing? It means that you can’t do anything with the Pad unless it’s communcating with the Wii, which makes it less flexible than a stand alone portable would be. It also has horrible battery life, estimated between 3 and 5 hours. And to top it off, Microsoft announced connectivity between their Windows 8 tablets and the Xbox, meaning that although they can’t do everthing Nintendo can, it makes Nintendo’s Wii U already a lot less impressive.

3. I agree with you on that, but at the same time, I think Wii had an audiance among the casual crowd which they might lose because of alternatives which weren’t as popular at the time, like Facebook games and Mobile gaming. It won’t affect core gamers, but they still won’t manage to establish themselves as strongly I’m guessing.

4. The better analogy would be if the PS3 and Vita were connected. You can take your PS3 games on the go now, something the Wii U will not be able to do on release. As far as using your Vita as a controller in games, that’s not a matter of being able to, but rather making that proposition advantageous to developpers. The bottom line is that the Wii U doesn’t do anything the other consoles can’t do, it just packages the tablet with it’s console, making it more available. But we’re still at least a year out from the other consoles and in that timeframe, they could easily provide the same service.

5. 300-350 sounds fair if you take it at face value, but here’s the thing: the other consoles are much cheaper and once next generation of consoles fully comes around, you’ll likely get a much better value out of the other consoles. Upon release, the Xbox 360 sold at 100$ less than it cost to produce and the PS3, 200-300$ less. It’s the kind of aggressive pricing Nintendo is unwilling to commit, which certainly makes them money, but from a consumer perspective, we are getting the shorter end of the stick.

Ah, the devil’s advocate! Pains me so much to defend anything Robert Murdock has stakes in.